


Phantom

by noxic



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, Mind Control, Phantom pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 12:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17406830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxic/pseuds/noxic
Summary: The winter soldier returns from the fight on the bridge.





	Phantom

When he sees the way the man's eyes grow wide at the sight of him, then soften for some reason that he can't really place, the Asset gets a prickling sensation in the nerves where metal meets flesh, where his body ends and the Weapon begins.

He can't really dwell on it in the heat of battle, but the feeling is vaguely itchy and bordering on painfully ticklish by the time he has made his retreat. The handlers pick him up just a few blocks away from the scene of the fight, but by the time he has been returned to base the feeling is so amplified that his fingers actually twitch in response, like he can rub the sensation away that easily. Realistically, he knows that it isn't possible. He knows where it's coming from, and he knows that the only way to reach it is by removing the Weapon, a feat of which he is not capable nor desirous at the moment.

Still, though, he rolls his left shoulder in the hopes of easing the sensation that is slowly becoming more and more painful.

By the time he's in the repairs room, sitting on the workbench and feeling Hydra's engineers poke and prod around inside the Weapon, his nerves are on fire, and the man from the bridge is all he can think of to belay the pain.

_(Though, he knows, that isn't the only reason why the man is on his mind.)_

But then he feels himself start to slip, and the images of scenes that he knows somehow but can't recall get his heart rate up. He's losing himself, and the scientists who are working on the Weapon are too close when it happens. It's all over as quickly as it had started, and there are guns being cocked and aimed at his head that he'd rather not have to deal with right now. So he stands down, sits, and tries his damnedest to understand what's happening to him.

When the old man comes in, the man who calls himself the Asset's master, he's still working on it. He doesn't really hear the guy's barking voice, despite himself, and when there comes a natural pause in the old man's speech, he says the first thing he can think of.

_(Because he's thinking again and…when was the last time he did that?)_

"The man on the bridge…who was he?" The old man's response is that he had been there during one of the Asset's previous assignments, which, when he thinks about it, is absolutely true. The strong, blond man had thrown a disk-shaped shield at the back of the Asset's head, and he'd caught it with one hand. Ha. But that isn't enough, and he knows it.

"I knew him."

When the old man denies, he tries to insist, but all that earns him is an exasperated sigh and a familiar plastic bit wedged between his teeth as the scientists strap him to the bench for Wiping. The process is agonizing, and it knocks him out cold. When he wakes up, the man from the bridge is just his mission to be carried out.

He doesn't notice that the pain in his nerves is gone.


End file.
